Portable electronic devices have become increasingly reliant upon the touch screen interface. While this interface type allows designers greater amounts of flexibility in presenting a digital user interface, some functions such as powering on a portable electronic device from a powered down or standby state are still best accomplished by a physical control positioned upon an exterior of the portable electronic device. This is due to the physical control requiring little or no energy expenditure to stay in a state where it is able to receive a user input, whereas keeping a touch screen interface activated or ready to be activated quickly draws substantially more energy to maintain. Unfortunately, this constrains the design of portable electronic devices as this makes the inclusion of a physical control such as a push button, toggle switch, slider switch or the like a requirement. Consequently, other low energy means for activating or changing the mode of a portable electronic device without a physical control on the outside of the portable electronic device are desirable.